Chapter 72 Diagon Alley and The Leaky Cauldron

In this way, Ivan and Harry lived in the Leaky Cauldron for the two remaining weeks of summer vacation.

Ivan had more to do now since Harry was so excited.

In the next few days, he visited almost every magic shop in Diagon Alley. He persuaded the business to advertise in the newspaper, thanks to the Hogwarts' Magic gradually increasing sales, many businesses were willing to do so, this gave Ivan more advertisers.

Ivan increased his savings a little now, he bought a lot of thing for himself such as potions materials that far exceed what a young wizard should have.

Last year when he was preparing the Polyjuice potion, the book that recorded the formula had many practical potions that improved your combat ability which is very helpful. If you wanted to buy the finished product it would cost a ton of galleons, it is more cost effective to make your own.

In addition, he bought a fascinating realtime constellation model.

With it, he didn't have to go to astronomy class anymore, Ivan was fed up of freezing every Wednesday night in the astronomy tower, it didn't help that he was afraid of heights.

He then went with Harry to buy some things on his school supply list.

They went to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions first to buy a new robe, the two people had just come out of the shop and they saw a crowd surrounding another shop.

They went up to see what all the commotion was about, Ivan noticed it was Quality Quidditch Supplies, it had a beautifully crafted broomstick in the shop's window.

"The firebolt, it was the current best broom on the market! The broom is made from ebony wood, has birch or hazel twigs, and has golden numbers engraved on it."

Ivan only glanced at it for a moment without showing a bit of interest but Harry almost got so close that his face was almost touching the glass.

"Come on Harry you already have a broom so you don't need to buy a new one," said Ivan, he knew Sirius would give Harry one for a Christmas present this year since his current one will break.

"But this is the firebolt, it is the fastest broomstick in the world."

"But it is also the most expensive!"

Harry nodded in agreement, he looked at the label that says the price and it says it is not negotiable, he couldn't imagine how much it was, there is one thing to be sure of, he might not be able to afford it.

It took a lot of effort to pull Harry away if he would have left him he would have stayed there all day staring at the broom.

After leaving Quality Quidditch Supplies, they went to Flourish & Blotts to buy new textbooks.

He needs a new defense against the dark arts book while Harry needs a book for the care of magical creatures and divination.

As soon as they entered Flourish & Blotts, the bookstore was a mess, the original bookshelves were replaced by a few large iron cages, which probably contain around two hundred Monster book of monsters.

These books were locked up together, they where fighting and biting each other, broken pages were flying everywhere.

"Are you Hogwarts students? Are you here to buy a new book?" the manager greeted them impatiently when he saw Ivan, he squeezed out a smile, "Oh, it's you, Mr. Mason, what book do you need?"

In a single year, Ivan bought over two hundred magical books from Flourish & Blotts which made him the most popular customer.

"Well what are these books about?" said Ivan as he pointed at the iron cages.

"Forget about them, these monster books are horrible. I have never seen such a horrible book in my life they are worse than the invisible book of invisibility. I have been bitten five times this morning."

When his voice fell, two monster books ganged up on another, the resulting force tore it apart.

"No! Stop it, stop it!" the manager yelled, he stretched a stick through the iron bars and shouted, "I will never order these books again, never! It is a nightmare, I want to know which idiot choose this book for a textbook, if I could I would kill him."

When he heard his words, Harry acted like he didn't know anything.

Hagrid had given him a copy of the book the other day which gave him a sense of unease, he knew Hagrid must have assigned the book as a textbook. No other professor would do it except for Hagrid.

Ivan seeing how the manager was struggling decided to tell him how to tame the book, he said, "It is actually pretty simple to deal with these books, just stroke the spine and they'll calm down!"

"What?!" exclaimed the manager.

Ivan motioned the other to take out a book from the cage, the book tried to bite but Ivan gently stroked the spine, the book shook and calmed down.

"God, Mr. Mason, that is unbelievable!" exclaimed the manager, "You saved me a ton of trouble!"

The manager then told several employees to take out the monster book of monsters, stroke there spins like Ivan had shown him and tie them together with a rope.

The manager gave Ivan and Harry the best discount possible.

Ivan was blunt, he took a few books including a few for the third year.

The second-year curriculum is exactly the same as the first year, and most of the material has already been completed by Ivan. Going to class would be a complete waste of time so he decided to attend third-year classes which Professor McGonagall agreed to at the end of last year.

Harry bought Intermediate Transfiguration by Emeric Switch, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3 by Miranda Goshawk, and Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky.

But he didn't read his new books, his gaze fell on another book, Death Omens: What to Do When You Know the Worst is Coming.

"Oh, if I were you, I would not read a book like that." said the manager of the bookstore when he saw Harry's gaze fall on the book, "When you read this book, you start to see signs of death everywhere, the book will scare you to death."

Despite the managers warning Harry still stared at the cover of the book: there was a dog on the cover, it was almost as big as a bear with two big eyes. The dog looked strangely familiar.

Harry pulled Ivan and motioned him to look at the cover.

Ivan glanced at the cover, the black dog did look like Sirius Black, he looked like the harbinger of death, it was no wonder Harry felt a little uneasy.

"Ivan didn't you say that night you…"

"I think it was just a stray dog!" Ivan thought about when he was chased by Sirius and ran through several streets, Ivan added, "Yes, a very annoying stray dog."